Meet the 30 leading African startups in healthcare supply chains selected by Investing in Innovation (i3) for their new $7 million fund

• Each start-up will receive at least $50,000 from the program.
• Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the program aims to bridge the gap between African-led businesses, investors, and donor agencies.
• The program is also sponsored by Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa, AUDA-NEPAD, and AmerisourceBergen.

Investing in Innovation (i3), a pan-African support initiative for African health supply chain start-ups, has announced its first cohort of 30 companies selected from 14 African countries that will benefit from its $7 million fund. The selected start-ups will receive at least a $50,000 grant and support to catalyse growth-driven partnerships with donors, industry and institutions.

Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and sponsored by Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), the World Health Organization Regional Office for Africa, AUDA-NEPAD, and AmerisourceBergen, the program aims to bridge the gap between African-led businesses, investors, and donor agencies. To this end, i3 is uniting leading donors, industry and African institutions to jump-start a new way of doing business to support African-led innovations in health.

The selected companies are, in alphabetical order:

1. Chekkit Technologies
2. Disrupt Pharma Tech Africa (Medsaf)
3. DrugStoc Ehub Limited
4. Erith Health Services
5. Gricd
6. LifeBank
7. Lifestores Healthcare
8. OneHealth
9. ClinicPesa
10. Damu Sasa
11. The Pathology Network
12. Negus Med
13. Signalytic
14. Viebeg Technologies
15. Zuri Health
16. Xetova
17. Cure Bionics
18. DeepEcho
19. Dr Sett
20. Infiuss Health Limited
21. Medevice
22. Meditect
23. Sobrus
24. Valorigo
25. Azanza Health
26. Appy Saude
27. Aviro Health
28. Contro
29. VaxiGlobal
30. Zinacare.

47% of the companies are women-led (which the program defines as having at least one woman with an equity stake and active executive leadership role), and 30% operate in Francophone Africa.

According to Ann Allen, Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Digitally-enabled, locally-led innovations have huge potential to help address the challenges of access to medicines for historically unserved patients in Africa. “We are thrilled to see strong women leaders at the helm of many of these start-ups, as we know innovation ecosystems are strengthened by diversity,” she added.

Dr Abdullahi Sheriff, Associate Vice President of Global Market Access at MSD noted, “The innovation represented by the start-ups selected is inspiring. At MSD, we are excited to collaborate with these leading innovators through i3, to help transform health care supply chains and improve access to medicines across Africa.”

i3 is coordinated by Salient Advisory, SCIDaR, and SouthBridge A&I and is operationalised by leading technology hubs across the continent: CCHub for West Africa, Startupbootcamp for Southern Africa, IMPACT Lab for North and French-speaking Africa, and Villgro Africa for East Africa. These hubs are responsible for the selection process and the follow-up of the startups throughout the program.

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